WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.

Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

Doctors, regulators, lawyers and courts in China – which supplies two thirds of the compact fluorescent bulbs sold in Britain – are increasingly alert to the potential impacts on public health of an industry that promotes itself as a friend of the earth but depends on highly toxic mercury.

Making the bulbs requires workers to handle mercury in either solid or liquid form because a small amount of the metal is put into each bulb to start the chemical reaction that creates light…Read the rest of this entry »

University of Kentucky entomologist Mike Potter called the bedbug nothing less than “the most difficult, challenging pest problem of our generation.” Tossing out phrases such as “doomsday scenario” and “perfect storm,” he ventured: “In my opinion, we are not going to get out of this thing” — the bedbug thing — until we “allow the pest-control industry to go to war.” …

Bedbugs had been all but eradicated decades ago, panelist Potter explained, but thanks to increased travel, pesticide bans and resistance, we’ve “let bedbugs get back in the game”…

Potter, who boasted that he’s spent “the last three years of my life digging deep into the history of bedbug management,” offered a challenge: “I’d like to take anybody who thinks bedbugs is not a big deal, and we’ll sprinkle a few in their house and see what they think.”

But will the greens permit the pest control industry to “go to war” against the bedbug?

One of the problems, according to researchers and the pesticide industry, is that there are few chemicals on the market approved for use on mattresses that are effective at reducing bedbug numbers. The appleseed-sized critters have also developed a resistance to some of the chemicals on the market.

The EPA, out of concern for the environment and the effects on public health, has pulled many of the chemicals that were most effective in eradicating the bugs from the U.S. over the last 50 years — such as DDT — off of shelves.

What solutions are being considered?

Because the registration of new pesticides takes so long, one thing the EPA could do is to approve some pesticides for emergency use, Miller said.

The pesticide management industry will be pushing for federal funding for research into alternative solutions, such as heating, freezing or steaming the bugs out of bedrooms.

“We need to have better tools,” said Greg Baumann, a senior scientist at the National Pest Management Association. “We need EPA to consider all the options for us.”

Consumers who buy minicars to economize on fuel are making a big tradeoff when it comes to safety in collisions, according to an insurance group that slammed three minimodels into midsize ones in tests…

… The [Insurance Institute for Highway Safety] concludes that while driving smaller and lighter cars saves fuel, “downsizing and down-weighting is also associated with an increase in deaths on the highway,” said Adrian Lund, the institute’s president.

“It’s a big effect — it’s not small,” he said in a telephone interview.

President Obama’s science advisor John Holdren has suggested that we consider blotting out sunlight to reduce global warming, according to an Associated Press report.

Holdren would shoot particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays back into space– I sure hope plants and people don’t need those rays for say, photosynthesis or vitamin D production, respectively. And what would be the other unintended consequences?

The green jihad against airconditioners must stop. Too many elderly Australians have died already.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Dr John Carnie, this week said some 374 Victorians may have been killed by the January heat wave, most of them old.

In South Australia, the toll is estimated at 80.

Just how many died because power blackouts knocked out their airconditioning is not known. And I doubt either government will ever say.

But what we are told is that both states now have plans to cut off the airconditioning – or make it too costly for pensioners to use – just when the heat is at its most lethal and the lives of the elderly hang in the balance…

Barack Obama plans on installing 40 million air conditioning-killing smart meters across America. Will your utility turn off your AC just when you need it the most?

Read Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell to find out how environmentalists plan to make your life a living hell and what you can do to stop them.

The New York Times has finally caught up to what Steve Milloy has been saying for the past two years about compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), including with respect to the greens doing a U-turn on the bulbs.

Some experts who study the issue blame the government for the quality problems, saying an intensive federal push to lower the price essentially backfired by encouraging manufacturers to use cheap components.

“In the pursuit of the holy grail, we stepped on the consumer,” said Michael Siminovitch, director of a lighting center at the University of California, Davis.

More…

In California, where bulbs have been heavily encouraged, utilities have concluded that they will not be able to persuade a majority of consumers to switch until compact fluorescents get better.That is prompting them to develop specifications for a better bulb.

The effort aims to address the most consumer complaints: poor dimming, slow warm-up times, shortened bulb life because of high temperatures inside enclosed fixtures, and dissatisfaction with the color of the light.

Finally,

Consumers are supposed to be able to protect themselves by buying bulbs certified under the government’s Energy Star program. But experts and some environmental groups complain that Energy Star standards are weak, permitting low-quality bulbs with too high a level of mercury, a toxic metal contained in all compact fluorescents. [Emphasis added]

Steve Milloy predicted the greens would do an about-face on the mercury in CFLs more than a year ago in this February 21, 2008 FoxNews.com column entitled, “Looming Lightbulb Liability.”